{"id":235071,"date":"2026-07-03T23:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T23:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/235071\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T23:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T23:30:14","slug":"mass-casualty-incident-declared-in-pennsylvania-due-to-heat-illnesses-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/235071\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mass casualty incident’ declared in Pennsylvania due to heat illnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u201cmass casualty incident\u201d was declared at a Pennsylvania event on July 2 due to heat illnesses<\/a> impacting dozens of attendees, according to multiple local reports.<\/p>\n

Local authorities\u00a0told ABC27<\/a> and Fox29<\/a> that more than 100 people needed medical treatment at the event at the Reading and Blue Mountain Railroad Outer Station in Berks County, where crowds gathered to see the world’s largest operating steam locomotive, Union Pacific\u2019s Big Boy,<\/a> on its nationwide tour.<\/p>\n

ABC27 and UPI<\/a> reported that dozens of attendees were also transported to local hospitals for further assistance, including someone who went into cardiac arrest and was resuscitated.<\/p>\n

Giant ‘Big Boy’ train helps celebrate America’s 250th birthday<\/p>\n

1 of 23<\/p>\n

Once powered by burning coal, Union Pacific\u2019s Big Boy now burns fuel oil or used motor oil to power its massive steam boiler. Pictured here leaving Cheyenne, Wyoming, Big Boy is the world\u2019s largest operating steam locomotive.<\/p>\n

(Trevor Hughes\/USA TODAY)<\/p>\n

The local temperatures that day reached 106 degrees<\/a>, according to multiple outlets.<\/p>\n

Scorching Fourth: Great American State Fair paused, USA 250 events canceled due to heat<\/a><\/p>\n

The “mass casualty incident” declaration was made to prompt emergency resources, the outlets added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coordinated response by local, county, and regional public safety partners demonstrated the effectiveness of mutual aid cooperation and the commitment of emergency responders to protecting the public during a large-scale emergency incident,\u201d Randall Hoover, police chief of Berks County’s Muhlenberg Township, said in a July 2 statement obtained by ABC27.<\/p>\n

USA TODAY has reached out to the Town of Muhlenberg, Union Pacific and the railroad station for comment.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Mass casualty incident’ declared in Pennsylvania due to heat illnesses<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201cmass casualty incident\u201d was declared at a Pennsylvania event on July 2 due to heat illnesses impacting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101371,349,101370,36501,28,30,29,80321],"class_list":["post-235071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-attendees","tag-berks-county","tag-heat-illnesses","tag-mass-casualty-incident","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-steam-locomotive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}